The National Institute on Media and the Family has released its 2007 video …

The MediaWise Video Game Report Card has again been released for the 12th year in a row. The card gives grades and guidance on how well the industry uses its own rating system and how well parents deal with video games for their children. The report is issued by the National Institute on Media and the Family, an organization that bills itself as "an independent, non-partisan, non-sectarian, nonprofit organization." The report begins by pointing out a "disappointing complacency on the part of the gaming industry, retailers and parents." The report then points out that the NIMF knows how to "maximize the benefits" of gaming, and that kids need to have "healthy, happy, MediaWise futures."

Can children buy M-rated games?

According to the NIMF's findings, yes, they can. While EBGames (now GameStop), Kmart, and Hollywood Video were in 100 percent compliance with the rating system, NIMF found that other rental stores which sell games and hire younger clerks have issues honoring the ratings system. While eight year-olds couldn't buy the games, older children seemed to have little problem, and the overall compliance rate was 55 percent. The report gave national retailers a "D" grade, specialty stores a "B" grade, and rental stores flunked with an "F" grade.

This basically matches what the FTC found in its own Federal Trade Commission report to Congress about violent entertainment and children. In the FTC's mystery shop program, it found that in 42 percent of the cases, children were able to purchase M-rated games. However, 71 percent of the time children were also able to buy R-rated DVDs at retail.

NIMF argues that one ratings scheme is needed for all media, but the FTC's findings show that even with a ratings system as well known as the MPAA's, compliance is actually less than it is in the gaming industry. Clearly, retailers need to be doing all they can to make sure underage children can't buy M-rated games, but the ratings system itself isn't the issue.

Are games tearing apart the lives of children?

The report notes that games cause friction in the home, and that arguments over the time spent gaming are "common." But looking at the NIMF's own numbers, 61 percent of parents say they rarely or never argue over gaming time, and another 30 percent said it happened "sometimes." While these numbers lead to a claim in the report that parents need to do more to enforce rules, based on the data, most homes don't have issues with the time children spend gaming.

NIMF also says that the content of games is changing behavior. One of the tests involved giving children access to a commercial game as well as a game "developed to teach about cancer and its treatment." Amazingly, the latter game taught children more about cancer than did the commercial game.

NIMF also notes a study in the Netherlands that shows boys who played a violent game become more aggressive, but it leaves out the fact that every participant in the study came from VMBO (preparatory middle-level vocational education) classes in the Netherlands, not from the general population. This means that the study didn't measure a single child from the HAVO (higher general continued education) or VWO (preparatory scientific education) classes. Making sweeping generalizations about aggression from the findings of these studies is problematic.

Did the ESRB fail with Manhunt 2?

The report gives a lengthy section to the re-rated and then hacked versions of Manhunt 2. The report admits that the AO-rated content was blurred, but then goes on to state, "As has been the case for as long as video games with alternate scenarios and 'cheat' modes have existed, such barriers are quickly compromised by gamers who love to explore a game’s every possibility." The report then states that M-rated games shouldn't contain "easily unblurable or unlockable AO-rated adult content."

ESRB president Patricia Vance replied in a statement that "NIMF exhibits a significant lack of understanding and, as a result, grossly misrepresents the facts surrounding last month's hack into pirated versions of Manhunt 2, a game rated for ages 17 and older that carried prominent and explicit warnings to consumers about its violent content."

Indeed, to unlock the AO content from the PSP version of Manhunt 2, one has to download a third-party program, obtain a copy of the game UMD's code, change the code, and then run the altered code via memory stick on a hacked PSP. Nothing about the process is easy, and many steps violate the DMCA, making the practice illegal. "At a time of year when parents are looking for helpful guidance about video games, this year's Report Card does little more than sow unwarranted doubt about effective tools like ESRB ratings," Vance states.

So how is the industry doing, according to NIMF?

The NIMF gave the gaming industry an overall grade of "C." Based on NIMF research, parents had trouble understanding and using the ratings system, and it was troubling how easily children could purchase M-rated games. The report calls for a single, unified ratings system across all forms of media, and asks for parents to become more informed about games and their ratings.

Coming up with a simple way to rate music, movies, television, and video games by one set of standards is a scary thought, and hardly seems necessary in this case. The FTC in its April report stated that that parents "generally appear to be using ESRB ratings as a decision-making tool in conjunction with their own separate monitoring of their children’s game playing habits" and stated in fact that the ESRB "leads all three industries in providing clear and prominent disclosure of rating information in TV, print, and online advertising."